Visit Bonniebrook, the birthplace of America’s beloved cherubs.
Story: Valerie Porter
Just eight miles north of Branson lies a lite known treasure named Bonniebrook, the birthplace of a phenomenon that captured America’s heart and has remained popular for decades.
Bonniebrook was once home to Rose O’Neill, creator of the impish creatures she called Kewpies, because they looked like tiny Cupids.
Rose was born in Wilkes-Barre, Penn-sylvania, in 1874, and she was one of seven children. Soon afterward her family moved to Nebraska. At fourteen, Rose entered and won a children’s drawing contest, though the judges originally doubted that the work had been done by a child.
In 1893, Rose’s family moved to a two-room cabin in Missouri’s Ozark hills, but Rose moved to New York to pursue an art career. She brought sixty drawings to the city with her, and within three months, she had sold every one of them. She became an illustrator for novels, children’s books, and magazines, such as Harper’s Bazaar, Ladies’ Home Journal, Life, Good Housekeeping, and the Saturday Evening Post. She drew more than seven hundred cartoons while on the staff of the humor magazine Puck.
Rose sent her earnings back home to her father, who turned their home into a four-teen-room mansion named Bonniebrook because of the beautiful brook on the property. Eventually, Rose had homes in New York, Connecticut, and on the island of Capri, off the coast of Italy, but her favorite retreat was Bonniebrook.
It was there, in 1909, that Rose dreamed of cherubic little elves bouncing on her bed. Awakening, she hurried to her drawing table and sketched the first of her sweet Kewpies.
That year, Kewpies debuted in a playful drawing along with a verse in Ladies’ Home Journal. Soon, Rose used Kewpies in ads for Jell-O, Oxydol, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and Lifebuoy. It wasn’t long before Kew-piemania was in full swing.
Kewpie dolls soon emerged. Soldiers in World War I carried Kewpie dolls for good luck. Plump, pixie-like Kewpies were given as prizes at carnivals and amusement parks. Kewpies became, and remain, beloved and highly collectible items.
Rose exhibited works of her more serious art and sculptures four times in Paris. But Kewpies will always be her legacy. She spent her final years at Bonniebrook, the home she loved, and she passed away in 1944 at age sixty-nine.
Bonniebrook was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Caretakers Chuck and Ingrid Taylor offer tours from April through November.
Visitors to Bonniebrook can enjoy a walk on the grounds, with gardens, tree-lined paths, and this waterfall. • Bonniebrook
• Bonniebrook
Visitors have come to Bonniebrook from all fifty states and thirteen countries, and Rose’s original workroom, where the Kewpies were born, is the most popular part of the tour.
After the tour, visitors can roam the grounds, past gardens and tree-lined path-ways, the brook, and a waterfall. They can view two large non-Kewpie sculptures of Rose’s, titled Embrace of the Tree and The Faunness, or they can spend a few moments at the O’Neill family cemetery, where Rose and many of her family members are buried.
Bonniebrook’s museum contains Rose’s original artwork, doll molds, and sketches.
The building stands as a tribute to the little Kewpies that became symbols of innocence, love, and good cheer, and to the woman who created them.
About Bonniebrook:
Bonniebrook is open from April through November, Mondays through Saturdays, from 9 A.M. to 4 P.M. Admission is $7 for adults and children 12 and under are admitted free. To get there from Branson, go north on Highway 65 past Bear Creek. Turn right on Rose O’Neill Road, and go one mile to the Bonniebrook Park entrance. Call (417) 561-1509 or click here for more information on the museum.
This article was originally published in the October 2002 edition of Missouri Life magazine.
